Under The Earth It Rained
by Sweet September Storm
Summary: Death spoke. "I name you Orpheus, O man. Your instrument is different now but your song has not changed." The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice re-imagined.


**Under The Earth It Rained**

* * *

I saw Death for the first time when I was seven years old. Mummy met him first, but my daddy was the one who introduced us. Twenty years have passed since that night, and I have only just begun to forgive him for that.

It began on an evening rather like this one. The sky was heavy and sullen, for it had been raining all day. With the sunset came a penetrating chill, turning the rain to a faint, frozen gray fog, and I remember feeling a sense of dread creep over me as the minutes ticked by and mummy's car did not emerge from that fog. Daddy's behavior didn't help. If he had stayed up in his studio all night I wouldn't have thought twice about my uneasiness. But after midnight he came downstairs to join me by the bay window, and it wasn't even to scold me for being up so late. Instead, he patted his knee and helped me climb up into his lap, which was something he hadn't done since I was very little. We sat like that for a long time. All the while he didn't say a word.

At last I grew tired of the silence. I leaned back and looked up at the bearded, paint-stained face I knew and loved so well. "Daddy, when is mummy coming home?"

His eyes followed a tendril of fog as it brushed the dark bushes outside. "Soon."

I snuggled closer to his heartbeat, feeling the need to keep his arm between me and the darkness. "Why is she so late?"

"I dunno, sweetheart." He looked down and smiled as he untangled me from his embrace. "Do me a favor and get me a glass of water, will you?" With a reluctance I couldn't explain then, I slipped down from the window seat and did as he said.

"Hello?"

I spun around, dropped the cup of water in the sink and prepared to jump into mummy's arms. But mummy was not there. Daddy had his phone out and pressed against his ear, his knuckles white and his eyes wide as he stared out the window. I crept close to the wall and tried to hear what mummy—because of course it had to be mummy—was saying.

"You're sure?" daddy said. His voice sounded funny, and the lump in his throat moved up and down in a peculiar way. "Thank you." He lowered the phone and stood slowly.

"Daddy, was that mummy?" He stared at the wall, not answering me, not looking at anything in particular. "Daddy?"

The phone slipped out of his grasp. By the time it hit the floor, he had crossed the front room in three long strides and seized my hand. There was a terrible look in his eye, and I followed him without question. We fairly ran up the stairs to his loft and the forbidden studio. To be honest, I think I was too surprised to make much of a fuss. Our family has one absolute rule, and only one: don't disturb daddy while he's working. For seven years I've obeyed that rule, only going up to his studio at his invitation and only for a very short time. But this time was different.

I knew my daddy, or at least I thought I did. I could tell that he did not have paint on his mind when he sat me down on an overturned gesso bucket and pulled a blank, door-sized canvas down from the shelf. Then he turned to me. I noticed his eyes were wet beneath wrinkles that I was sure had not been there that morning. He put one hand on my shoulder and gently tipped my chin up with the other. "Sophie, sweetheart, listen carefully," he said. "I'm going to paint a picture. I want you to sit here until I tell you otherwise, and whatever happens, don't be afraid. Understand?"

I nodded. "Is it for mummy?"

Daddy's jaw tightened and that bump in his throat moved up and down again, faster than before. "Yes." He began uncovering his paint pots and collecting his brushes, setting them before the canvas like a row of little idols before an altar. I crossed my legs and folded my hands in my lap to wait. If daddy had asked it of me, and if it would help bring mummy back to us, I would have sat there for a week.

He set to work. Gray was the first color he chose, tossing the contents of the entire can toward the top of the canvas and letting it drip downwards. I wondered what he had in mind for mummy's picture. She didn't usually like gray. It was too depressing, she said, because gray was the color of indifference. "If you're going to paint life then paint _life_," I had heard her tease him once as he showed her his new collection. "None of this nihilist nonsense." Daddy had said that nihilism was in fashion just then and mummy laughed. I forgot to listen to the rest of their conversation, since the word nihilism meant nothing to me and my favorite program was about to come on the telly. But I do remember that the next morning daddy scrapped his gray series and started afresh.

That night he did not stop with gray. Red, then violet, then yellow, then a deeper shade of gray…then yellow and red again… I lost count of how many times he repeated this process. It was more than long enough to send both my legs fast asleep, but I dared not move. Daddy was beginning to frighten me. I was quite sure he had never painted like this before, and I _knew_ he never painted with an expression like that on his face. Beneath the spatters of paint and drops of sweat trickling down from his forehead, his look was frenzied. Savage, really. It was only then that my seven-year-old mind began to sense the truth: something terrible had happened to mummy. Nothing less could inspire a look like that.

When he had finished the final coat of black paint, daddy pulled another empty bucket next to mine. He sat, breathing hard and staring at the canvas with something akin to loathing. I'm not sure how long we sat there in silence before I ventured to ask him what it was. Tears sprang to his eyes as he met mine. "It's a door, sweetheart," he said at last.

"To where?"

"To Death."

The word held just enough meaning for me to fear it, though not enough to make sense of it. If Death was a place I didn't like it, but at least Daddy said there was a way out. "Is that where mummy is?"

"Yes."

"Are we going to get her, then?" Slowly, sadly, he nodded. "How?"

Daddy took my hand. "Sophie, do you remember what I told you when we visited the gallery last year?"

I did, but only because there had been some paintings there that frightened me. Twisting bodies and great dark voids and faces with too many eyes and mouths in the wrong positions… I had cried, so daddy picked me up and told me about the people behind the paintings. "See that, Soph? Tilt your head this way a bit. See? It's just a picture of an old lady. No need to be afraid."

I had made a face through my tears. "What's _wrong_ with her?"

"Nothing, sweetheart. Mr. Bacon was a great artist. Sometimes artists just see things differently, especially the great ones. He certainly did."

"Do you?" I asked. As far as I was concerned, daddy was the greatest artist in the world.

"Once in a while. Do you remember what mummy says about my muse?"

I had thought hard about that one, just to be sure I got her words right. "She says…you shouldn't swear at it so often or you'll scare it off."

Daddy had laughed at that. "Touché. Mummy does say that, doesn't she? I guess she's right. Muses are temperamental creatures. They can open doors to places you've never imagined, but they can be stubborn. You have to treat them carefully or else they'll scamper off and you won't see them again for months at a time."

"Really? Where do muses go?"

He thought for a second. "Mount Helicon, I suppose."

I had no idea where that was, so I decided to look it up in the atlas when we got home. "Daddy, what do muses eat?" I asked instead.

"What do they _eat?_ Goodness, why do you want to know?"

I had put my head on his shoulder. "If you kept a bowl of their favorite food in your studio you might not have to go chasing them so often."

He had smiled, hefted me in his arms and moved on to the next painting. It was much nicer than the other one, all greens and purples with a little brown dog in the corner. "Well, I suppose you have a point. Muses feed on emotion. Strong feelings, imagination, curiosity. Life itself, in fact."

That was not as easy to put in a bowl as I had hoped. "How do you feed it life?"

"Very deliberately, sweetheart. It takes a great deal of will. Every time I create a painting, some part of me goes into it. It's the sort of sacrifice every artist has to make. A bit of life and energy and creativity in exchange for a bit of a window into beauty. The more I put into it—the more food I give my muse—the bigger the window. Does that make sense, Soph?"

It hadn't at the time. Naturally I said it did, because I loved listening to daddy explain this great and mysterious thing that was his life's work and I didn't want him to stop. But then, sitting side by side on those gesso buckets, with that great black canvas in front of us, I began to understand. "You said your muse could open a window to beauty."

"Yes. Beauty…and other things."

"Like Death?"

"Like Death."

I felt like crying for fear and sheer bewilderment. "What did your muse eat this time?"

He stood and answered very solemnly: "My soul."

"Can you get it back?" My seven-year-old brain had only a vague notion of the soul, but even though I didn't understand _what_ it was, I knew that it was somehow tremendously important. If daddy had given his soul to his muse, we would have to find a way to return it to him.

"Yes, but to do it I need you to come with me. Will you do that?" He should have known that my little feet would have followed him anywhere. I jumped off the gesso bucket, kicking it over in my hurry to show daddy how brave I could be for him. My legs stung and tingled as the blood began to flow through them again. I ignored the feeling and took daddy's hand. "That's my girl," he said, and then together we made for the canvas.

It seemed to have grown larger and blacker, more like a presence than a painting. Daddy took a putty knife in his hand and slashed once—twice—three times, slicing through the still-tacky layers of paint. Black peeled to yellow and yellow to violet, then to red. Red gave way to a thick gray gash running down the center of the canvas. Gray as dense as the fog outside our windows, and then…daddy reached into the painting. No—it was not a painting anymore. It _was_ a door. Giving my hand one last squeeze, he stepped through the door and pulled me in with him.

We found ourselves on a sidewalk. A cracked sidewalk of no particular interest, bordering an empty street in what looked like an empty city. There was fog here too. I shivered and stepped closer to daddy. He put his arm around me, raised his other hand to his lips and whistled. The sound fell flat and dead, but a moment later a cab drove up from out of the fog to our right and parked next to the curb. The window rolled down slowly. A wrinkled man with a long, greasy mustache peered up at daddy.

"Wot do _you_ want?" he said.

"An audience with Death," daddy answered. "I have business with him."

The driver snorted and began rolling up the window. "You en't got an appointment and I en't the cabman of the living. Go back."

"No." Daddy caught the edge of the window and forced it down again. "I don't care what other appointments he has. He will see us."

The cabman frowned and stuck his head out to see better. "_Us?_ Wot kinda fool…" his voice trailed off as he caught sight of me.

"My daughter," daddy answered the stranger's unspoken question. "Death took her mother before it was time. I want her back."

For a few moments the cabman was silent, staring first at me, then at my daddy, then at me again. "That girl shouldn't ha' seen me for a long whiles yet. You _are_ a right fool, bringin' her this way," he said at last.

"Will you take us to Death?"

The old man sighed. "Aye, I'll take you, but that's only 'cause I'm tickled by your stupidity. And I'll take the girl because I en't leavin' her alone out here. Get in." Daddy did as the cabman said, and I followed him. We sat in silence as the cabman pulled away from the sidewalk and began to drive. The ride was not long. After passing a few more equally deserted streets, the car stopped. "Out," was all the cabman said.

"Was that it?" daddy asked.

"Time and distance en't got no bearing in this city. I may've just driven you to the other end of eternity fer all you know. Now get out. You'll find Death in that building there."

"Thank you…Charon," daddy said as he shut the car door.

"Wot'd you say?" the cabman called after us through his closed window, sounding genuinely surprised. "Oi! You! How'd you know my name?" But daddy did not answer. The building was an old theater, and by the time the cabman had lowered the window we were already through the revolving doors.

There was no foyer, no atrium, no chance to prepare ourselves for our audience with Death. Daddy and I walked straight onto the stage. Before us spread row upon row of red velvet theater seats, stretching back into darkness. Death sat in the center of the front row, the only figure in the vast room. He was dressed in flawless evening dress, down to the black carnation in his buttonhole. That might not have been so terrible, but over his face was a white mask smeared with bright theatrical paint, as if a toddler had tried to fashion his own Guy Fawkes' mask in mummy's lipstick and magic marker. The effect was infinitely disturbing. Death held up his hand when he saw us—not in greeting, but to silence the orchestra that I then realized had been playing under the stage. I had not noticed them at first because their ghostly instruments made exactly no noise.

Even holding Daddy's hand I was terrified, waiting for something I didn't understand in that silence-within-silence. At last Death spoke. His voice from behind his mask was soft and rich and rotten. _"Why are you here, O man? You cannot hear my orchestra yet. Your part above is not over."_

Daddy's voice was thin and stringy in comparison, but I clung to it and to him with all the strength I had. "You took my wife, Death. Her part wasn't over either. I want you to return her to me."

"_Why?"_ Death asked again.

"Because I love her."

Death laughed. _"Many have come this way for the sake of love, O man. A good beginning has not brought them to a better end, though it does make their final act a bit more entertaining. Is your love the only line you came to barter with? I generally require at least a soliloquy before I cast you in your last role."_

"No, it's not all I came with."

"_Then get on with it. There are others waiting for their audition, and while I might be eternally patient, I don't think they are. Say your piece."_

"This is my piece, Death."

Daddy released my hand and pushed me forward.

It was as if a physical barrier had been shattered, that wall of daddy's presence that shielded me from the worst of the horror and terror and senselessness of Death. I could not move for fear. Was he _giving_ me to Death? I truly didn't know, and so I did what any child would do whose trust has been broken at the hands of the one they love most. Standing alone in the presence of that painted monster, missing mummy and wondering what I had done to make my father abandon me like that, I wept.

I might have cried for a minute; I might have cried for a thousand years. It made no difference.

At long last, Death spoke again. _"It has been many ages since such rain was seen in my halls. I name you Orpheus, O man. Your instrument is different now, but your song has not changed. This child should not have seen this stage for a very long time yet, and now she will never be the same. You have dared much for the sake of your Eurydice. I will return her to you."_

Daddy took my hand. It was not as comforting as it had been before. "That's all I want."

"_I have one condition. The parts in my play must all be filled, but I am not choosy. I do not care who plays what part; I only care that they are played. If you or your daughter will stay with me, I will release your wife. It will be no great loss to me. She has only just arrived."_

For a long moment, daddy said nothing. I think that frightened me more than anything else.

"_What is your decision? Will you stay, and give your child her mother? Or will you leave her to see your wife again? Or will you give up your Eurydice for the sake of your daughter? Choose quickly; my stage was not built for living beings. The wood is already beginning to groan under the weight of your guilt."_

Daddy scooped me into his arms and turned from Death without a word. I buried my head in his shoulder and willed myself to forget everything I had seen and heard as he carried me out of Death's theater and into the waiting cab. Daddy sat in silence as the cabman drove, cradling me in his arms. He did not let go until we reached the rent in the air on the curb of that empty gray street. The cabman left us there without a goodbye, and neither daddy nor I looked back as we stepped through the painted door and into his studio.

That night, for the last time in my life, I cried myself to sleep. There was no more mummy, and daddy had forgotten to tuck me into bed.


End file.
